"A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables." Fifty years after the publication of the philosophical tour de force The Phantom Tollbooth, we meet the author of that extremely grown-up pensée, the architect turned children's writer Norton Juster.
Meanwhile the poet and broadcaster Michael Rosen tells us why we should all get over Dickens and instead celebrate the bicentenary of nonsense writer Edward Lear. He explains why Lear is such a key figure in the history of poetry for children, charting his influence from the metaphysical whimsy of Norton Juster to the dark adventuring of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. He also makes the case for The Owl and the Pussycat as one of the great English love poems for romantics of all ages.
Reading list
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (HarperCollins)
The Owl and the Pussycat and Other Nonsense by Edward Lear (Templar)
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (Red Fox)
A selection of poems at Michael Rosen's website
